


That Time of Year Again

by atlanticslide



Category: Hit the Floor (TV)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Meeting the Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 13:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8981923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/pseuds/atlanticslide
Summary: “How would you, um.  How’d you feel about coming with me to my mom’s on Christmas.  And.  You know.  Meeting her and everything.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yellow_ferrari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_ferrari/gifts).



> Um. Prepare yourself. This got _really_ sappy. Sorry?
> 
> (not that sorry)

He’s expecting Zero home, expects the thumping of stupidly expensive shoes and the rattling as Zero throws his keys down, maybe the sound of the refrigerator door opening and a beer bottle being popped open.

What he doesn’t expect, in addition to all of that, is a stranger’s voice and the sound of furniture being moved.

Jude pops his head out of the bedroom and furrows his brow at the sight awaiting him.

“What’s this?” he asks as he comes out and watches a guy struggling with a tree.

“What’s it look like?” Zero responds without turning to look at him.

“It looks like a Christmas tree in my livingroom.” 

“Right on the money.” Zero braces one hand against the mantle - the mantle that’s still got his jersey perched above it - and one against the tree as the delivery guy struggles to get it perched in the treestand. “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”

“Why…?” Jude says, stretching one syllable into three. “Why is it here? You’re apartment is like twice the size of mine.”

The delivery guy ignores them, just focuses on straightening the tree trunk in the stand he’s set up where Jude’s couch use to be. 

“Yeah, and it’s all the way across town and it’s got an elevator, and how the hell do you get a tree this size into an elevator?”

Jude doesn’t answer, just looks forlornly at his couch, shoved over now into a corner near his desk, as the delivery guy finishes securing the tree into the stand and straightens up. Zero pulls several crisp bills out of his wallet and hands them over to the delivery guy with a grin that Jude can finally see, a grin that makes Jude soften, and Zero looks kind of expectantly at the delivery guy as he hands over the cash.

The man glances between Zero and Jude as he takes the cash. Jude sees him take a quick look around the apartment, and then catches Zero’s eyebrows raising a bit, like he’s waiting for something, and Jude knows what. He can also tell from looking at the delivery guy that he’s not going to give Zero what he’s waiting for.

“So… thanks, man,” Zero tells the man.

The delivery guy looks over at the framed jersey perched up on the mantle, and then back at Zero. “Yeah,” he says, kind of quiet, and then turns to leave. 

Jude watches him with an ache in his chest. Zero keeps the grin on his face, but it’s become tight and forced. After the front door closes behind the delivery guy, leaving the two of them alone in the apartment, Zero rolls one shoulder and clenches his jaw a bit before turning fully to face Jude and throw him a smile. 

“Hey,” Jude starts, because they haven’t talked about this much and he hates seeing this happen, seeing this disappointment in Zero, but Zero won’t let him get it out.

“What’d’you think, huh?” he waves one hand vaguely at the tree and then turns back to gaze it proudly with his hands on his hips. “Pretty big, right?” 

“I guess?” Jude replies, wanting to make a joke about how it’s not the size that counts, but instead he walks over and wraps his arms around Zero from behind and rests his chin on Zero’s shoulder, taking a moment to revel a bit in the extra couple of inches he has on Zero.

“You gonna be around later this afternoon?” Zero asks, keeping up the conversation even as he leans back into Jude and rests his hands against Jude’s elbows. Jude can feel the tension in him and he tries to hold on even tighter. “I’ve got this lady coming by to decorate it at three.” 

“You’re… paying someone. To decorate it?” Jude stutters out as he rubs Zero’s forearms. 

“Sure, why not?” Zero shrugs awkwardly in Jude’s embrace. “Someone’s gotta decorate it, right?”

Jude presses his nose against the crook of Zero’s shoulder, breathes in his aftershave. “Usually you do that yourself.”

“Yeah, sure, but I’m busy, you’re busy, who’s got the time?” Zero shifts his head a bit to rub his forehead against Jude’s.

It’s a fair point - there’s a game this evening that Zero has to get ready for, and Jude’s got a couple of meetings late in the day today plus a quick trip up to Sacramento tomorrow to meet with someone from the Kings and they’ve really barely had time to even see much of each other lately, let alone decorate a Christmas tree together. The holiday is still a couple of weeks away but the schedule in December is brutal - it’s miracle enough that they happen to have an off-day on Christmas itself.

Plus, “I don’t really have any decorations,” Jude points out. “I usually just go up to my mom’s place for the holidays.” He doesn’t mean for that to be a hint, exactly, but it’s as good a time as any to bring it up. “Speaking of - ”

“It’s cool,” Zero cuts him off. “The woman I hired, she’s bringing stuff, it’s all part of the deal or whatever.” He waves his hand around a bit, tries to shrug Jude off, and Jude lets him go but doesn’t let him get away with getting out of the conversation.

“ _Speaking of,_ ” he says pointedly as he watches Zero go off to busy himself with getting something out of the refrigerator. “How would you, um. How’d you feel about coming with me to my mom’s on Christmas. And. You know. Meeting her and everything.”

Zero’s face is pinched, uncomfortable when he turns back to face Jude. “Your mom,” he says, not a question.

“Yeah. You guys haven’t met yet and - I mean this is as good a time as any, right?”

“Ehhh,” Zero breathes out, almost a whine that makes Jude want to roll his eyes. “Yeah, I mean the thing is, I don’t really do moms.” 

“I hope you don’t do moms, at least not since you and I got together,” Jude deadpans, making Zero smile.

“Hilarious. You know what I mean, meeting the parents and all that, that’s not really my style.”

“What, you’ve never met a girlfriend’s - or, um, boyfriend’s,” he adds awkwardly, still unsure sometimes how to approach Zero’s past relationships and the vagueness with which Zero discusses his sexuality - “family?”

Zero shrugs, takes a long sip from the water bottle he’s just pulled from the refrigerator. He wipes a stray drop of water from the corner of his mouth with his thumb and Jude’s eyes follow the movement unconsciously.

“I don’t know,” Zero replies ambiguously. “Never wanted to, anyway.” 

It’s not an answer, but Jude lets him get away with it. “Okay, well what if I want you to?”

“Jude…”

“Come on,” he says, pleading just a little as he takes a few steps towards the kitchen where Zero’s leaning back against the refrigerator, and rests his forearms on the countertop separating them. “What’s the big deal?”

Zero raises his eyebrows. “The big deal. You want to know what the big deal is about me meeting your mother.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jude concedes, looking down at the countertop. “But that’s it, right, I want you guys to get to know each other.” He looks up at Zero, tries not to be nervous when he says, “She’s important to me. And you’re important to me. And it’s Christmas and everything, I want to spend it with both of you.” 

And the truth is, Jude’s never cared all that much about Christmas. He doesn’t hate it, he doesn’t cringe at the sound of Christmas songs played over the speakers in supermarkets and shopping malls and he doesn’t mind the overabundance of red and green-tinted commercials - even the ones with mounds of snow that come on when it’s still 72 degrees outside his door - and he even kind of likes the lights and cheerful colors that emerge in the evenings leading up to December 25. 

It’s just that most of his life the holiday has just been him and his mom and the image of the big, festive family gathered around a huge tree with piles of presents was never his reality. And he’s never been resentful or morose about it, but seeking out that emotional holiday feeling is just never been something he’s made much of an effort for. 

Still, he _does_ usually spend the day with his mother, and she _does_ enjoy it and seeing him, and it wouldn’t feel right ditching either his mom or Zero for the other. 

“You don’t even really mention your mom all that much,” Zero says, kind of defensive, like he’s trying his last-ditch arguments.

“Yeah, well,” Jude shrugs, continues staring down at the countertop, uncomfortable to be talking about this particular subject. “She and I haven’t really seen eye-to-eye on a lot of things over the last few years.” 

“So, then, what’s the problem? Why’s this even a question?”

Jude turns his gaze back upward and gives him a long, measured look. “Zero, c’mon, she’s still my mom, even if she’s annoyed at me right now.”

Zero rolls his head back, looks like he wants to groan, and Jude can see him gripping the water bottle tight enough to squeeze the plastic. 

“I mean, the thing is,” Zero says with a sigh. “The thing is, meeting someone’s parents, it’s - that’s like legit relationship stuff.”

“...So?” Jude asks, even though he’s pretty sure he knows where Zero’s going with this, and also pretty sure that he doesn’t want to hear this.

“So I told you, I don’t do relationships.”

Jude can’t even get mad about this kind of thing anymore, and instead just rolls his eyes and shakes his head a little. “You’re aware that we _are_ actually doing a relationship right now, right? We’re building a house together, that’s about as committed as you can get other than marriage and a baby.” 

“Yeah, yes, okay,” Zero grumps, running a hand through his hair. “I meant _didn’t_ , I didn’t do relationships. So the whole parent thing, families and all that… I’m just not really into that.”

Jude sighs, drops his head to stare down at the countertop. He drums his fingers against the linoleum for a moment, tries to think of what to say, how to just get through this conversation. After a couple of years of knowing Zero, after a year of sleeping with him and a few months of being in a normal relationship with him (as normal as anything in their lives can really be), he’s not under any delusions about Zero’s hangups. It’s hard to get angry or even that annoyed - Zero’s trying, and things are good between them. There’s a trust between them that Jude has utter faith in like nothing else in his life. So he tries not to push too much, let Zero be who he is, ‘cause god knows Jude has his own hangups and bullshit that Zero deals with without pushing him too much, and it works. 

And really, he loves who Zero is. Hangups are hangups, but Jude is so stupidly in love and he wants this life. It’s just that building a life together means others have to be involved eventually, because despite the fact that their conversations have been pretty frosty lately, his mother is a big part of his life.

He sighs again. “Okay, look. If it’s going to make you that uncomfortable - I don’t want to force you to do anything you’re not cool with.”

He looks back up to find Zero eyeing him carefully.

“Really?” Zero asks.

Jude shrugs, pushes himself away from the counter to come lean against the refrigerator next to Zero, nudge their shoulders together. “I just wanted to spend the day with both of you. You’re important to me,” he says to the floor, and feels Zero lean against him at that. “She’s important to me too. I’m not a big holiday person or anything, I just, y’know, it’d be nice to be with both of you.”

Zero turns his face into Jude to press himself against Jude’s neck and sigh heavily, warmly. “You really know how to guilt a guy, don’t you.” 

“I wasn’t trying to,” Jude replies honestly.

“Yeah, okay.” Zero keeps his head tucked up against Jude’s and reaches down to run his fingers over Jude’s knuckles. 

“Okay?”

“ _Okay_ , where does she live? She’s nearby, right? You grew up around here?”

“Yeah, well, uh, she moved after I went to college, so she’s not, uh - ”

Zero pulls back to give him a hard look. “Jude, where does she live? This isn’t gonna involve a flight somewhere, right? We have a game on the 26th, I can’t be going far out of state or something just to see your mom.” 

“Victorville,” Jude tells him, and pulls away to busy himself with rearranging the dishes piled up in the sink.

“Where the fuck is Victorville?”

“It’s… a few miles north of San Bernardino.”

“How many miles?”

“Around… forty.”

“ _Jude_ , are you kidding me?”

Jude turns back to him and for some reason he finds the impotently furious expression on Zero’s face hilarious, and it’s a struggle not to break into a grin.

“You already said okay, so. Y’know. Go start planning what you’re gonna wear.”

“We probably _should_ take a plane,” Zero grumbles as he walks away.

-

“You know I wasn’t serious when I said you should plan ahead on what to wear, right?” 

Zero looks down at himself, the dark, pinstriped three-piece he’s got on and the perfectly pressed tie that, granted, goes really strikingly with his eyes, and Jude doesn’t really want to make fun of it because Zero looks fucking amazing in a suit, but he doesn’t even wear three-piece suits to weddings.

“What’s wrong with it?” 

“You’re meeting my mom, not the First Lady.”

Zero sighs and goes back into the bedroom, pulling his jacket off as he goes.

Thirty minutes later sees them pulling out onto the 101 and Jude’s fingers drumming against the steering wheel nervously as Zero, in a much more dressed down suit jacket, jeans, and t-shirt, leans one elbow against the car window and stares, seemingly, at nothing they drive past.

“You don’t have to be nervous, you know,” Jude tells him, glancing over in time to catch Zero’s jaw clench. 

“Who’s nervous?”

“Okay, I’m just saying - ”

“Jude,” Zero says, sighing a little and turning so he can rest his hand on Jude’s shoulder, squeeze lightly. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Look, she raised you, right? She’s got to be cool.”

Jude can’t quite help his smile, stares hard at the mile markers along the side of the road to distract himself a little. “That’s a nice thing to say,’ he comments mildly.

“Well, I’m a nice guy.”

Jude snorts at that and when he turns to look he finds Zero grinning back at him. Zero squeezes his shoulder again and then lets his hand arm rest behind Jude’s shoulders long enough for Jude to get annoyed by it while trying to drive and shrugs him off. 

“See, I can charm the best of ‘em,” Zero goes on proudly. “I’ll charm the hell out of your mom.”

“No, probably best not to try that,” Jude tells him.

“Try what?”

“The whole charming routine, she won’t go for that.”

“Pssh,” Zero scoffs, cocking his head back. “Everyone goes for it.” 

“She won’t,” Jude assures him. “She has a good eye for bullshit and she’s not into it.”

Zero’s quiet for a moment, save the tapping of his fingertips against the dashboard. Jude concentrates on the road in front of them, navigating the relatively light Christmas Day traffic and trying not to regret insisting on this, trying to quell the worry that they’ll both hate each other and this will all be a disaster. 

“Why don’t you guys talk much lately, anyway?” Zero asks after a few minutes. “You barely even ever mention her.”

Jude doesn’t answer right away, trying to think of what he even _can_ answer. He chews on his lip for a moment, and then says, “She’s… she doesn’t really get it, why I wanted to get into sports, why I wanted to work so closely at the Devils. With Oscar.”

“Ah,” Zero replies, a vague utterance that sounds like he gets it. 

“I started spending more and more time with him, and she just kept telling me that I didn’t really know him and that he’d let me down.” He tries not to sound like it bothers him, even though he knows that’s just a front for no one’s benefit. Zero knows how painful the issues with Oscar are for Jude, but it feels easier here, out in the relative open, with the sun shining on them and a breeze flowing through the open window and Zero’s hand creeping up to rub Jude’s knee, to pretend that none of it really hurts that much. 

“At least she hasn’t said ‘I told you so,’” Jude adds with a rueful smile, and Zero squeezes his knee.

“At least you know, now,” he replies. “At least you tried and now you know for sure who he really is. That’s, y’know. That’s braver than I think I could be nine times outta ten.”

Jude shifts his gaze from the road to Zero, and he can’t meet Zero’s eyes behind the other man’s sunglasses, but he’s pretty sure Zero is looking back at him.

-

“So,” she says by way of greeting when Zero holds out his hand. Jude cringes. “You’re the basketball player, huh?”

Zero swallows audibly. “Yeah, hi, Zero.” His hand is still out, poised for a handshake that Jude’s mother is thus far denying him.

“ _Zero._ You really go by that all the time?”

“Yep,” Zero replies without further explanation, hand still held out. She takes it, finally, and Jude is finally able to exhale even though she’s still staring at Zero warily. 

She shuffles Zero inside and turns her attention to Jude, her expression switching from suspicious to open in a flash, and if Jude had any doubts that she’d be happy to see him after the year they’ve had, the tension that’s been between them and the arguments they’ve shared, they’re erased in a moment when she pulls him in and wraps her arms around his neck, brushes one hand through his hair. 

“I’ve really missed you,” she says against his ear, and he presses his face against her shoulder for a moment as if he’s six years old again, unable to say much of anything. He’s had a few moments over the past few years, as he worked his way through the agency and wormed his way closer to Oscar and grew more and more distant from his mother, in which he'd wondered if he was in danger of sacrificing his relationship with one parent for an attempt at a relationship with the other.

But apparently all is not lost with his mother, and he almost blurts out _I’m sorry_ on impulse as he pulls back. She shakes her head like she knows, though, and turns to lead him into the house. 

She definitely doesn’t like Zero, though, that much is clear right off the bat. 

“How’s your friend, the actress one?” she asks Jude as she perches on one end of the sofa next to him and turned so that she’s angled away from Zero. Jude glances over her shoulder to see Zero’s eyebrows raise at him. 

“You know her name, mom,” he says and reaches to snag a square of cheese from the plate she’s put out on the coffee table. 

“Fine, okay, Lionel Davenport,” she replies with a laugh. “I’m still not really over the fact that you know the star of _Ecstasy_.”

“She’d probably like to forget that she was the star of _Ecstasy_.” 

“Oh no, it wasn’t that bad!” she says with a concerned frown and a wave of her hand.

“It was pretty bad,” Zero pipes up from behind her. Jude shoots him a look. He raises his eyebrows again in response. 

“Actually if you’re interested,” Jude says, “Zero knows a few other actresses.” 

“I’m sure he does,” his mother replies and rises from the couch to sweep out of the room and into the kitchen. 

“Dude,” Zero hisses accusingly as soon as she’s gone.

“Sorry, sorry.” Jude rubs his forehead and then gets up to go sit next to Zero on the other sofa. “That was a stupid thing to say. I’m just not really sure what to talk about. Our lives are pretty much basketball - ”

“So, basketball.”

“She hates basketball.”

Zero sighs. “That would’ve been good to tell me before I agreed to do this, if we can’t even crack _that_ subject.”

Unfortunately, Zero doesn’t actually seem to be doing much better than Jude’s mother at any of this.

“So you don’t have a fireplace in here or anything?”

“No.”

“Not even like a small one in the bedroom? The place I had back in Ohio had three, it was epic.”

She narrows her eyes a bit but doesn’t respond. 

“You should really think about having one put it,” Zero goes on obliviously, sweeping his arm around the room. “It’d really up the ante on this livingroom, probably add a bunch of value to the house overall.”

“Mhmm,” she hums in response noncommittally. 

“Since we started on the planning for the house Zero bought, he’s gotten pretty into renovations and home value stuff,” Jude jumps in, rubs a hand up and down Zero’s forearm a couple of times and hopes this will open up a new conversation. He’s told her about the house, told her about the renovations they’re doing and moving in together when it’s finished, so none of this is news, but instead of asking more, she looks down at the coffeetable and takes a bite of a cracker, and Jude’s stomach clenches.

“I’m fine with my TV,” she says, nodding over her shoulder at the flatscreen on the other side of the room that’s currently displaying a silent picture of a burning log before looking back at them on the couch opposite her. 

“You like the Yule Log, huh?” Zero asks with a hint of disdain hiding in the smile he’s got plastered on his face. 

“I find it charming,” she replies evenly.

Zero turns to gives Jude a look that very distinctly says _what the fuck?_

“I’m going to go check the ham,” Jude’s mother says, ignoring the looks between Zero and Jude.

“I’m never going anywhere with you again,” Zero tells Jude as he glares at the closed kitchen door. 

“You could be doing better too, you know,” Jude replies darkly after a chugging half of his glass of wine. 

“What’d _I_ do?” Zero looks back at him, puts a hand to his chest like he’s affronted. 

“You’re trying to show off and you know it.” Jude takes another swig from his wine glass. “Three fireplaces? Did you seriously have _three_ fireplaces?” 

Zero shrugs, gives him the cockiest of smiles. “Girls thought it was romantic or some shit, and you gotta keep the house warm, right?” 

Jude just laughs at that, shakes his head a bit as he slouches back into the couch. “That’s not helping.”

“Got you laughing, though,” Zero says, elbowing him lightly in the side as he leans back next to Jude and tucks his head up against Jude’s chin for a brief moment. 

Jude rolls his eyes and huffs a small laugh, shaking his head a bit. When he looks up, his mother is in the kitchen doorway chewing on her lower lip and not even pretending not to be watching them.

Conversation is a little less tense later on over dinner, mostly because there’s an unspoken but mutual agreement to stick to completely neutral topics like (somehow neutral) politics - “Trump freaks me out,” Zero comments, and Jude’s mom nods, “Yup” - and movies - “the new _Star Wars_ movie is pretty good,” she tells him enigmatically, refusing to give up any spoilers, Jude nods enthusiastically, “Yeah, we’re definitely going to go see it next day off the team has,” while Zero shrugs with disinterest because he doesn’t really care about _Star Wars_ but Jude won’t take no for an answer on going to see it. 

It goes right back to awkwardness after dinner, though. 

Zero goes over to take a closer look at the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room like he’s a ref studying instant replay, hands clasped behind his back and nodding slowly as he walks around the tree and peers at the branches. Jude would laugh at the spectacle he’s making, except that his mom is also watching nearby, with her arms folded in front of her.

“Nice tree,” Zero comments after a few moments. “Your ornaments are really, um… diverse.”

Jude snorts a laugh, gets up to come over to stand beside Zero in front of the tree. “That’s a really weird thing to say about a Christmas tree.” He runs his fingers over the branches, fingers a couple of the ornaments that have been hanging on these trees since he was a little boy - a cutout of Santa Clause’s head with a fluffy cotton beard, a strand of reindeer strung together, a porcelain ball with the Earth painted across it, a hundred others that he’s seen a million times before. 

“This one is probably my favorite,” Zero says with a smirk, touching the corner of one particularly ugly ornament made up of several popsicle sticks glued together painted in red and green and dangling from a strand of yarn.

That pulls a small smile out of Jude’s mom, who comes over to stand beside them and gently takes the ornament from Zero’s hand and hold it up, resting against her palm. 

“Jude made that when he was about five,” she tells them, her expression fond.

“I can tell,” Zero says, but it’s not unkind, and Jude bumps their shoulders together. 

“Right, I’m sure you never made any ugly, stupid Christmas ornaments when you were a kid,” Jude laughs, gazing at the stupid mess of popsicle sticks that was maybe supposed to be a star - he’s not actually sure anymore. 

“I had our tree decorated by a professional,” Zero says, and Jude looks up to find him fingering one of the little white lights nestled between the tree’s branches. 

“A _professional_ ,” Jude’s mother remarks, and Jude can’t quite decipher the tone in her voice. 

“Yeah, this lady who does interior design or something, I guess,” Zero goes on as he takes a step back from the tree and shoves his hands into his pockets, shrugging his shoulders awkwardly. “I guess this is a big time of year for her, she only managed to squeeze us in after I threw a bunch of money at her. Did a pretty good job, though, right?” he asks, turning to Jude, who shrugs in response, because he still doesn’t really get the point of it. 

“‘Threw a bunch of money at her,’” Jude catches his mom mutter, and he holds back a sigh. But then she looks up at Jude and then to Zero and back again, asking, “Wait, I thought the new house wasn’t finished yet?”

“Yeah, no, it’s not,” Zero nods. “I meant our tree back at Jude’s place.”

Her face goes a bit dark, but she nods tightly, turns back to the tree with her hands on her hips and teeth once again biting her lower lip. 

“Right. Well. The, uh, the new house is actually going forward, huh?” she asks tightly. 

“Yeah, we’ve got it all mapped out, construction should be getting started pretty soon, once we get the space cleared out,” Zero replies carefully, seeming to sense the tension. “There’s this girl, uh, this woman I know in Portland who hooked me up with an architect she knows in L.A. who drew up all of the plans and everything.”

“A girl in every port, huh?” she quips, dark and irritated and not at all joking.

Jude watches Zero’s face go tight, panicked, and he takes a couple of quick strides across the living room to put a hand on his mother’s elbow and tug her towards the kitchen. 

“Hey, the pie needs to be warmed up, can you find that plate for me?” he says stupidly as he drags her through the door. 

“‘That plate’?” she says, glaring but somehow also a little smug, which is a combination that only she - and, ironically, Zero - can really pull off.

“Yeah, okay, just get the pie,” he tells her, rolling his eyes, as he leans on one hand on the kitchen table.

“Hey,” she says, sternly holding up a cake-cutter. “Don’t use that tone with me. And the eye-rolling, that really needs to stop, you’re not eleven anymore, Jude.”

“Well, y’know, you could do with a better tone too,” he fires back as she starts cutting slices of the pie that didn’t actually need to be warmed up. “You’re being really weird here.”

“ _Weird,_ ” she says, dropping a slice of pie onto a plate and shoving it at him. 

“Yes, _weird,_ you’re being weird and rude,” he tells her bluntly, putting the plate aside. “What’s your problem? Is it…” he has a sudden, terrible thought that hadn’t ever occurred to him because his mom is his _mom_ and she’s not Oscar and she would never… “It’s not ‘cause he’s a guy, is it? That I’m dating a guy?”

“What?” She looks up at him, utterly shocked, and then, somehow, her eyes turn hurt, almost sad, and she puts the cake-cutter down for a moment. “Are you kidding me, Jude? Of course that’s not it, you know I don’t care about that.”

“Then what _is_ it?”

She sighs and goes back to staring down at the pie, slicing through it a little more carefully this time. “I just don’t like _this_ guy.”

“But you don’t even know him!” Jude says in an angry whisper, dropping his voice and glancing over to reassure himself that the door is closed. 

“Believe me,” she scoffs. “I know him.”

“Come on,” he says, coming over to stand next to her and take the second plate of pie from her hands. “You’ve never even met him, you don’t know anything about him.”

“I know he seems to change public personas just about every six months,” she says as she puts the cake-cutter down again and leans against the counter. “I know he’s had a string of failed relationships, though I doubt any of them were really all that authentic. I know he got busted for hiring prostitutes last year.”

“How’d you hear about all of that?” he asks carefully, unsteadily, nervousness clawing at his stomach.

“Jude, please. You tell me you’re dating a professional basketball player, you really think I’m not going to Google him? Give me a _little_ bit of credit here.”

Jude sighs and shakes his head. “That’s not - you still don’t actually know anything about him, or our relationship, you’re not even trying.”

“What exactly do you expect, hun?” she asks with a wave of the cake-cutter before going back to slicing up the pie. “You tell me you’re dating a man but you need to keep it quiet for the moment, then you call me up and tell me that you broke up, and of course you don’t tell me any details because why would you, I’m just your mother.”

He rolls his eyes, and she barrels on.

“But clearly, even though you haven’t come up here in months, I can tell that this guy has done a number on you, and do you really think it’s easy to see your son’s heart get broken?”

“No, but - ”

“And then all of a sudden you’re with the effing captain of the Devils - the _Devils_ , of all freaking things, of all the teams you could get yourself yanked into, it had to be that one, and already this guy is talking like you’re living together? And you’re surprised that I’m not taking this well?” 

She looks at him with wide, incredulous eyes, hand against her chest dramatically, and when laid all out like that, okay, maybe Jude’s made a few mistakes here, but - 

“We’ve barely talked in the last year,” he tells her defensively. 

“You know why that is.”

“Yeah, and it has nothing to do with Zero, so I’m not really sure why you’re so unwilling to get to know him.”

“ _Zero_ ,” she scoffs, shaking her head, and Jude wishes he could tell her more, wishes he could explain that, but Zero would never forgive him for repeating that story, and he’s not really ready to go back to being Gideon full-time yet. “I mean it’s right there in his name - who goes through their whole life by a nickname? Everything about him is marketing, branding, even coming out - everything I’ve read says he’s profited quite a bit on his sexuality, which is - don’t you see how bizarre that is, Jude?”

“ _No _,” he tells her firmly, searching for the words to make her get it. “You don’t - it _hasn’t_ been easy or just, I don’t know, nice and profitable and whatever else you think, it’s been fucking hard.”__

__“Hey, language,” she says, pointing the cake-cutter at him as if he’s not an adult who can swear when he wants to._ _

__“Sorry,” he says, though, out of habit. “It’s not actually been all that perfect for him. You know how hard it actually is to tell the world that you’re attracted to men, that you’re _dating_ a man when you’re a professional athlete? The team, most of the fans, they’re fine, that part of it is okay, and yeah, okay, he got some good endorsement deals out of it, but he lost a bunch too.”_ _

__“I’m sure he’ll survive,” she deadpans._ _

__“Not all of the fans, though,” Jude goes on, trying to make her understand. He thinks back to the guy who delivered the Christmas tree, about how he clearly recognized them and knew exactly who Zero was, about how Jude could tell that Zero was expecting that gushing, adoring reaction that he’s been so used to getting everywhere he goes, and how uncomfortable the guy seemed around them in Jude’s apartment. “Even the ones in L.A., a lot of people have turned on him. And when the team travels, some of the sh- stuff people say to him. I mean, he - he had to shut down his Twitter account because he was getting death threats. We’ve got a stack of mail at the arena addressed to him that we’ll never let him see because it’s all variations on telling him to jump off a bridge.”_ _

__She purses his lips as he talks himself out, and looks back down at the pie, slightly battered from her angry slicing._ _

__“You have no idea what he’s given up, _I_ didn’t even really get what he’d be giving up before it all happened, but he did, he knew what he was getting into, and he did it for me, and I’ve never - ”_ _

_Never had someone give up everything for me_ is what he means to say, but even before the words can come out of his mouth, he knows they’re not true - she gave up everything, a long time ago, and it’s never really occurred to him until recently what it really meant, exactly. He spent so much of his life wrapped up in the idea of Oscar and being a _Kincaid_ and for a long time he resented his mother just a little bit for leaving all of that behind. It wasn’t until Oscar actually said it out loud, said _Your mother was too small for the life I was building, so she left,_ that it began to sink in _why_ she left - to try and protect Jude from that very moment.

__“Look, okay,” he sighs, rubbing his forehead. “I know I can’t make you like him - and to be totally honest, he’s kind of an acquired taste.”_ _

__That pulls a small smirk out of her, which he returns._ _

__“Could we just - can we just eat some pie and look at the tree and the stupid Yule Log - ”_ _

__“It’s not stupid,” she defends, like she always does when Jude points out how dumb that thing is._ _

__“-And just try to give him a break or something?”_ _

__She’s quiet for a long time, staring down at the pie and the stupid Christmas plates that she and Jude decorated when he was seven and the pie that she must’ve bought specifically for him because she doesn’t actually like cherry all that much._ _

__After a sigh, she hands him a plate and nods to the kitchen door. “Your boyfriend’s been waiting for a while out there, he’s going to start getting suspicious about what we’re talking about in here.”_ _

__“I think he probably put it together pretty quickly, mom,” he says with a sardonic smile, and she gives him another exaggerated sigh and pushes a second plate of pie at him._ _

__Much later on, after they’ve eaten pie and carefully discussed Dodgers free agent signings and the new _Spider-Man_ movie and Donald Trump again, after Jude has hit the bathroom and has spent ten torturous minutes trying to fix the sink knowing all the while that Zero is stuck alone with his mother, they head out to leave with the sunlight fading and ninety miles of traffic between them and Jude’s couch. Jude’s mother gives Zero a tight smile and, surprisingly, a pat on the shoulder before letting him go and turning her attention to Jude._ _

__She pulls him in for a hug, and he lets himself sink into it for a moment, puts his chin on her shoulder and tells her he loves her._ _

__“You know that I just want you to be happy,” she says in reply, rubbing his back and reaching up to ruffle his hair lightly. “I want you to be treated right.”_ _

__“I know. I am.”_ _

__She pulls back and gives him a smile that still looks tinged with sadness, can’t quite reach her eyes, but she squeezes his shoulder and nods, asks him, “You in town at all next week? I could come down to L.A., we could have lunch or something.”_ _

__“Yeah,” he replies, mentally reshuffling his schedule to figure out some free time. “That’d be good. Maybe Tuesday?”_ _

__She nods, brushes her thumb across his cheek briefly, tells him, “Merry Christmas, hun.”_ _

__“Merry Christmas.” He leans in to give her a kiss on the cheek before turning to follow Zero out the front door._ _

__They don’t talk much on the drive home, probably both too shellshocked with the whole weird day. Zero offers to drive and Jude’s not going to argue so he sinks into the seat and lets his head fall back against the headrest, stares out the window at the lights along the side of the highway, thinking about not much of anything._ _

__Jude groans exaggeratedly as he collapses onto the couch, sidestepping the almost comically huge tree along the way, and laughs when Zero stops to switch on the tree’s lights before coming to throw himself down onto the couch next to Jude._ _

__The tree has been decorated within an inch of its life, not a branch spared without tinsel dangling from the end and lights perfectly color-coordinated throughout, spaced evenly with the array of blue and green and red balls. There are no unique ornaments, no real personal touches to it, but it’s a nice enough tree to look at, Jude will admit, and he says as much to Zero who hums in agreement._ _

__They’re quiet for a long while, just sitting with their shoulders resting against one another and watching the tree. Jude thinks about getting up to put some music on or something, but the warmth from Zero’s body pressed against his own is just too comfortable, and comforting._ _

__“Can I tell you something?” Zero says softly after a few minutes. “And you not get all… how you get?”_ _

__“How do I get?” Jude asks, turning awkwardly to try and look at him._ _

__“You know, all… I don’t know, whatever, just.” Zero stops for a moment, looks back at the tree in front of them. Jude watches him carefully, wants to take his hand or something but knows better than to force this kind of thing out of him. “This is my first Christmas tree.”_ _

__Jude stares at him for a moment. “What?”_ _

__Zero shrugs, awkward with how they’re pressed together, and glances back at Jude quickly before going back to the tree. “Growing up, we never had one, never really did birthdays or holidays or any of that - maybe we did with my mom, I don’t remember, but not later. In college I always lived in dorms, can’t have a tree in the dorms. After that, I don’t know, it just didn’t really seem…”_ _

__Jude doesn’t press him, just watches him, and when Zero looks away from the tree, that’s when Jude does wrap his hand around Zero’s, tangles their fingers together._ _

__“I’ve always had these big, stupid houses, or, like, clean, cold apartments or hotel rooms or whatever - I’ve lived in all of these places and they’ve never really felt like a real _home_ , y’know? I don’t know, maybe this is stupid, but I just never cared much of decorating any of them, especially when it comes to shit like this, like Christmas or whatever.”_ _

__He pauses again, looks up at Jude, and Jude wants so badly to kiss him then. “I know it’s not really _our_ place," Zero continues. "Not yet, but I always liked it here more than my own apartment, and. I dunno, I just wanted to try that out, the Christmas tree and all of the lights and all of that crap that I never really…” _ _

__He trails off and shrugs again, and Jude shifts to move his arm around Zero’s shoulders, tuck Zero into him. He presses his lips against Zero’s forehead and then rests his head there for a long moment, his heart constricting painfully as he tries not to get angry again over Zero’s past, his childhood, all of the people who let it all happen._ _

__“Whether it’s here or the new house,” Jude tells him softly. “Or a hotel room or a cardboard box under the Santa Monica Pier, when I’m with you, it feels like home.” It’s sappy, but it’s true, and he says it because Zero can’t._ _

__“Yeah,” Zero sighs, butting his nose up against Jude’s cheek and breathing him in._ _

__“Next year in the new place, we can get five Christmas trees,” Jude whispers. Zero laughs lightly and shifts around to kiss him._ _

__He gets up then and goes to pull something out of the pocket of his jacket from he’d left his jacket tossed over the kitchen countertop. Jude watches him for a moment before getting up to follow where Zero’s come to stand in front of the tree. When Zero pulls back, Jude sees he’s hung the ornament Jude made - the ugly popsicle stick thing - on a branch in the front of the tree._ _

__“Did you steal that?” Jude asks, surprised._ _

__“No,” Zero replies with a brief glare. “Your mom gave it to me. For our tree.”_ _

__“Oh. That’s…” _nice_ is what he means to say, but what comes out is, “Surprising.”_ _

__“Yeah.” Zero pulls Jude in to wrap his arm around Jude’s shoulders. “Guess she’s not actually so bad.”_ _

__Jude doesn’t answer, just tugs Zero closer and smooths his hand up and down Zero’s back and then remembers something in the bedroom._ _

__“Hold on, I almost forgot…” he says vaguely as he leaves the warmth of Zero’s arms to dart into the bedroom and comes back a moment later with the small package he’d picked up on a whim a few days ago._ _

__He opens it up and pulls the ornament out, tosses the box aside and holds up the glass orb for Zero to see. It’s nothing _that_ special or anything, just a painted wintertime scene with snow-capped pine trees and people ice skating on a frozen pond, typical “Christmas” imagery that looks nothing like where they live, and “2016” painted in fancy script in red across the middle._ _

__“I saw it the other day, thought maybe we should have one to remember this Christmas. One of our own.”_ _

__Zero smiles at him, bright and open in a way that Jude knows he never shows to anyone else and makes Jude feel dizzy and in love, and Jude hands him the ornament to hang from one of the branches in front of them._ _

__The two ornaments stick out from the rest of the perfect uniformity of the tree, the two imperfections that actually make it all the more beautiful, and he thinks, _fuck, I’m so lucky_ as Zero wraps his arms around him once again.__


	2. Chapter 2

It’s not that he doesn’t want to meet Jude’s mom, really. He’s mostly never really thought about it - he loves Jude and has long since accepted that Oscar - whether Jude’s speaking to him or not - comes along as part of the package, but he’s never given much thought to who else comes with it too.

But he’s not lying when he’d says that he doesn’t ever do this with the people he’s dated - it’s a big deal, bigger than he’s ever been willing to accept. He knows how to talk to people, he knows how to charm most anyone he meets, but he’s not really sure how sit down and genuinely try to get to know someone that he doesn’t want or need to get anything out of. Which makes it even more unnerving when Jude warns him him not to try and turn on the charm with her.

“What’s she like, anyway?” he asks when they’re in the car.

“I don’t know,” Jude shrugs. “Like a regular mom, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, I never really had one of those so that doesn’t really clear things up.” 

Jude winces. “Sorry, I didn’t mean - ”

“It’s fine,” Zero waves him off, not angry. Jude gets him, more than anyone he’s ever really known so Zero doesn’t really get upset when he says something offhanded like this without really thinking.

“She’s… I don’t know, I guess she’s like me? She’s kind of sarcastic - ”

Zero narrows his eyes as he thinks about this for a moment, says, “Are you really that sarcastic?”

“-And pretty nerdy- ”

“You’re definitely nerdy.”

“Thank you,” Jude deadpans, which makes Zero laugh.

“What do I call her? Mrs. - wait, she’s probably not Mrs. Kincaid anymore is she?”

“No in a long time,” Jude says, shaking his head. “It’s Ms. Williams, but I don’t know that you really need to call her by her last name. ‘Sarah’ is probably fine.”

“Why’d you get the Kincaid last name, anyway?”

“It’s what I was born with,” Jude replies simply. 

“You ever think about changing it?”

“I have, actually, but…” Jude trails off with a shrug, and Zero wonders if this is one of his own missteps. “I dunno, it’s what I was born with, what I grew up with. For a long time it represented a life that I really wanted and something I wanted to be a part of. Don’t bring that up in front of my mom,” he adds, glancing over at Zero and then back to the road. “We’ve had fights about it already, it’s kind of a sore subject.”

“Any other subjects we should avoid?” Zero asks with a nervous twist to his stomach. It’s really stupid, he hasn’t been nervous about meeting a new person since he was about 20 and talking to scouts and agents trying to woo him away from college to play in the pros.

“Oscar. My job. Probably best to avoid the team altogether.”

Zero laughs, “Right, so nothing about our lives, got it.”

Jude just smiles, kind of a bitter thing, and lets out a long sigh as they pull off on the exit with a sign for Victorville.

-

Jude’s mother is a slight woman around Jude’s height with dark hair, darker than Jude’s, and eyes that look like his. Zero spends a few minutes searching her face for similarities - it makes him think of Laura, for some reason, something he’s thought of before on occasion, if he’d find any similarities between them if they ever met again. 

Trying to find something to talk about is a minefield, especially since it seems like she decided she didn’t like him before Jude and Zero even showed up, and Zero’s not really used to dealing with this - people either like him automatically, quickly come to like him as soon as he starts talking or starts shooting hoops, hate him and he makes no qualms about butting heads, or hate him and he doesn’t really care about them at all. 

He doesn’t really know what to do with someone who seems to hate him who he actually wants to get on the good side of without manipulation or blackmail. 

Still, though, both he and Sarah are trying, for the most part.

“Nice tree,” Zero tells her honestly. “Your ornaments are really, um… diverse.” 

Jude laughs at that, because yeah, that came out weird, but he does mean it. It’s not as big as the one he got for them, or as immaculately decorated - the ornaments on this tree are old and clearly loved, mismatched and scattered unevenly throughout the tree and this is what Zero had been thinking about when he bought the tree, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to instantly create a lifetime’s worth of memories and sentimentality. 

His eyes catch on the silly one hanging by a piece of yarn from one of the higher branches, popsicle sticks that look vaguely like the shape of a star and painted with Christmas colors, the remnants of glitter that’s mostly long since fallen off. “This one is probably my favorite.”

Sarah comes over to hold it up, smiles genuinely at him for the first time all night. He smiles back, hopes maybe this is a turn for them.

“Jude made that when he was about five.”

“I can tell."

“Right, I’m sure you never made any ugly, stupid Christmas ornaments when you were a kid.”

Zero’s chest feels a little tight - Jude doesn’t know, and Zero’s not going to say something as pathetic as _no, because anytime we did stupid arts and crafts in school I just threw it away on my way home because I knew they’d never save it and we never had a tree anyway_ in front of Jude’s mother. When he glances up, though, he catches her watching him with an expression he can’t quite decipher - something knowing, maybe, and Zero wonders just how much Jude’s told her about him.

“We had our tree decorated by a professional,” Zero says, searching for something to talk about that’ll shift the subject in a different direction. 

Later, after Jude has pulled his mother not so subtly into the kitchen and Zero has listened to them argue - because the door is a lot more thin than either of them seem to realize - he thinks about just making a break for it and taking the car, but plasters on a friendly smile for their return. At least they’ve brought pie.

They eat quietly, talk about Spider-Man for lack of anything else to connect on, and when Jude gets up to go to the bathroom (telling Zero, specifically, “I’m sorry, I really gotta go,” before he leaves Zero alone with his mother), Zero sighs and pushes his empty plate away.

He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and rubs his hands together, gets right to the point. “You don’t really like me.”

“Mmm,” she replies, staring at him evenly. “You’re pretty quick on the uptake.”

That makes Zero smile. “And you’re pretty direct. I like that.”

“Don’t try to be charming,” she tells him, sounding distinctly like Jude all of a sudden. “It won’t work.”

“Look, okay,” he sighs, dropping his head for a moment and staring at his hands. “Most people’s parents, they’d be thrilled to have have me dating their kid, considering, y’know, the money and the fame and all of that - not to mention my generally winning personality.”

That doesn’t elicit a smile from her. He smiles at his own joke anyway. 

“I get why you’re not thrilled, though,” he says, looking up to catch her eye. She doesn’t look away, and he appreciates that about her; he wasn’t lying when he said he liked her directness. It reminds him a little of Jude.

He goes on, “Here’s the thing, though: I’m not Oscar Kincaid.” He watches her tense up at, but whether it’s the insinuation he’s made or the mere mention of the guy’s name, Zero’s not so her. But her mouth goes thin and tight and her fingers dig into the couch cushions she’s sitting on.

“I never said you were,” she replies, a little coldly. 

“But that’s what you’re thinking. That I’m Oscar and Jude is you and he’s just going to repeat whatever it is that happened with Oscar all over again and I’m gonna ditch him any day now.”

She shakes her head, her mouth twisting angrily, and says, “Oscar didn’t _ditch_ me. I left him and I did my best to keep Jude away from him, away from that life, and here he is just diving headfirst right back into it.”

“But I’m still not Oscar. And Jude, you don’t even know, you’ve never seen how he works - he’s really good at his job.”

“You think Oscar was always the way he is now?” she asks, eyebrows raised. “You think I would’ve ever married him if he was a greedy egomaniac when we first got together? He was a decent person once - or I thought he was, anyway. And his business grew, and he bought the Devils, and it all became this - this _empire_ that he was building up and as he got bigger and bigger, something in him just twisted and…” she sighs and trails off, looks away for a moment like maybe this is all painful to lay out for Zero. “This life, the power, it twists people and drives them to do things… I don’t _want_ Jude to be good at this. And I don’t want him involved with someone who’s just going to use him and hurt him.”

“That’s not -” Zero shakes his head, trying not to get mad, trying not to be offended. He kind of desperately wishes that Jude would get back here but also doesn’t want him hearing this conversation, and he’s starting to suspect that Jude heard them talking and is giving them a minute. “So you’re cool with him being friends with Lionel Davenport but not with him dating me.”

“I’m not really cool with any of it, to be honest,” she tells him evenly, looking back at him now and clasping his hands together. “But Lionel Davenport won’t break his heart the way that you could. The way you already have. Lionel Davenport isn’t going to leave him devastated if he realizes that she cares about only herself and her money and fame.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Zero tells her, and she raises her eyebrows at him again. He nods and puts up his hands placatingly, sighs and says, “Okay, y’know what, I don’t actually know what might happen. But the thing you’re missing here is that he broke my heart too.”

Her brow furrows at that. He takes a breath and goes on.

“It was probably more my fault than his when things ended the first time around. It definitely was. I was freaked out and I didn’t know how…” he shakes his head, hates thinking about this. “And I’m not telling you any of this just ‘cause; I’m telling you this because I want you to get it. He gave me an ultimatum and I couldn’t do it and he walked away from me and I’ve never actually said this to him, but it fucking broke my heart. I was in love with him even then and I didn’t know how to tell him, but it killed me to watch him walk away.”

She lets out a long, audible sigh and raises her hand to rub her forehead for a moment. “Look. I really don’t mean to be an asshole. This all, this life that he’s caught up in, it all brings out the worst in me, and you seem like a nice enough person.” 

“Yeah, I get it.”

“And seeing him go down this road, working so hard to win Oscar’s favor, it’s… it scares me.”

He doesn’t really know how to reassure her, how to convince her, because the truth is he’s sometimes not really sure himself.

“The thing is,” he begins, unsure what exactly is going to come out. He looks away from her, down at the floor, unable to meet her eye at the moment. “I’ve never really felt about anyone the way I do about him. I can’t even really explain it, what it is about him, but it’s just like, when he looks at me, I actually feel like - like…” he trails off, unable to finish the sentence. _I actually feel like he believes in me, and not just for my game or for how easily I can schmooze with people or whatever, and I literally can’t remember the last time I had someone like that_. He can’t actually say any of that out loud, least of all to someone he barely knows who already dislikes him. 

Instead, he says, “He's important to me. He's really important to me.”

He’s not looking at her, but he can feel her eyes on him, staring him down for a long, quiet moment. It’s just as well that Jude comes bursting back in a minute later, because Zero’s pretty tapped out on honest conversation at this point, and has no words left for any of this. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Jude says in a rush as he quick-steps across the room to sit back next to Zero, giving Zero an anxious look. “The bathroom sink was having issues, something with the pipe underneath, took me a few minutes to get the water to drain…”

He trails off when he seems to notice the tension in the room and he looks from Zero to his mom and back again as he asks, “Everything okay out here?”

“Yup,” his mother answers quickly, rising from her seat to gather the empty plates. “Everything’s okay, hun.”

A short time later they’re gathering their jackets to head out and Sarah pulls Zero aside with a word about taking some leftovers. After handing him a couple of bags of ham and pie and mashed potatoes tucked up in tupperware, she presses something else into Zero’s hand.

“For your tree,” she tells him when he looks down to find the ornament Jude had made, the popsicle sticks in the shape of a star. “At Jude’s place. I know you have it all decorated, but - but it’d probably be nice to have something older on it, something of his.”

He looks up at her, no idea what to say. She gives him a small smile - not bright and warm and welcoming, but it’s there, and it’s something to hope for.


End file.
